Thomas Alva Edison is well known as being America's most prolific inventor, with a record of 1093 patents bearing his name. Although famed for his invention of the Phonograph which first recorded sound, the electric light bulb and the subsequent commercialisation of electricity, he is less well known for his pioneering of the American Cinema.

1888-1895

In the late 1880s, Edison turned his attention to recording moving images and in 1888 described a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear".

He appointed one of his chief electrical engineers (and accomplished photographer), William Kennedy Laurie Dickson as head of the project. At their research facility in Menlo Park NJ, the Edison Company spent two years experimenting with film, lenses and the mechanics of film transport before developing a device which successfully recorded and replayed movement. Named the Kinetoscope, it was a peep show viewer which allowed a single viewer to see a 30 - 60 second loop of film.

The Kinetoscope

On the 20th of May 1891, Edison unveiled the Kinetoscope to a large group attending a convention of the Federation of Womens Clubs. The subject of the film was Dickson himself bowing, smiling and taking off his hat.

However, Edison and Dickson needed more entertaining films for their machines before they could exploit them commercially.

In 1893, they built America's first movie studio, a large tar covered shack nicknamed The Black Maria, (after its resemblance to the police Paddy Wagons of the time). Ingeniously constructed on a revolving rail and with an opening skylight to maximise on the use of natural light, its stage was to feature excerpts from many of the vaudeville acts which were popular in New York music halls at the time.

The 'Black Maria'

Most of the films during this era were definitely made by men, for men, with boxing and scantily clad burlesque dancers being the most popular.

Many well known dancers were enticed to perform in the Black Maria between 1894 and 1897, among them Loie Fuller, Chrissie Sheridan, Carmencita, Ella Lola and Annabel Whitford. Some of the dance films were painstakingly enhanced by hand-colouring, a task carried out by wives of Edison employees (notably the wife of Edmund Khun).

Commercially, Edison did the same with the Kinetoscope as he did with the Phonograph, by leasing it to special licensed parlours, the first of which opened in New York on April 14th, 1894.

For a short while the Kinetoscope was commercially successful but with the loss of staff (Dickson left in April 1895) and, in particular, developments in Europe, Edison's lead in the motion picture entertainment industry was threatened. The French Lumiere Brothers, Edison's main rival, had the first public screening of a film in a cafe in Paris in December, 1895.

1896-1900

While Edison (rather ambitiously) focused on combining sound with images, other inventors, both at home and abroad, were developing ways of projecting images so that films could be enjoyed by a larger audience.

Raff and Gammon, who were the commercial and operational directors of Edison's enterprises, were astute enough to realise that Edison could very quickly lose his lead in the movie business. However, they were also pioneers in marketing and promotion. They recognised that product branding and corporate identity could be powerful marketing tools.

They persuaded Thomas Armat, who had successfully developed a projector, to allow the Edison Company to market his product as the work of Edison, convincing him that their infrastructure and marketing machine would guarrantee commercial success. Edison agreed to adopt Armats Phantoscope projector, renaming it The Edison Vitascope.

Vitascope Projector

Publicised as the latest miracle from the Wizard of Menlo Park, the Vitascope's highly publicised launch was at Koster and Bials Music Hall in New York on April 23, 1896. It was hailed as a great success showing six film clips, the last of which was a hand colored serpentine dance (most likely Annabelle).

Vitascope Advertisement

This debut effectively launched projected motion pictures in America and re-affirmed Edison's reputation as the father of its movie industry.

The period immediately following the first picture show saw the introduction of new projectors, new exhibitors and the birth of independent movie production companies. The expansion was so fast that within a year, even the smallest American township had been visited by a picture show and the novelty of seeing moving images was over.

American audiences thirsted for entertaining films of world events, sport and military achievements. Dickson himself was to go to Africa to record the Boer War. The growing number of independent film makers strove to supply the most up to date footage and the exhibitors competed to show the best programmes. It is unlikely that films of dancers would have been on the commercial market later than 1900.